These little humans are the universe

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Schools are great. I like school. It allows solitude in a sea of people. Even greater, though formal, it is a realm for expanding a child's cognitive ability, discovering the best of the world technically and systematically (if the school is being serious enough). But despite this beauty, it would become a true tragedy the moment parents expect school alone to educate kids on life and living. A lot of kids could have advanced in life if parents did not wait for school for them to start learning and unfolding their potentials.

The moment a child could start deliberately observing and noticing their surrounding, around three years old I think (for bright children, read: they get good nutrition, enough sleep, and love and nurturing environment), the child might not be able to learn talking and writing well yet, but they are able to work on understanding more complex things such as absorbing the idea of reading a book, building legos, cooking, creativity, etc, by seeing the household doing those on a frequent, consistent basis, and later, indulging in those activities exponentially.

From this, around three until seven years old (assuming this is the common age of children getting into primary school where the learning process is much stricter and demanding), that's FOUR years. Let alone three years, there are so many major progress and big changes that could happen in that period so do not underestimate it.

That range is where a child seems the cutest and the most innocent, but do not underestimate the power of their ability to grow lot intellectually and physically (strength) and cognitively (memory). Instead of taking too much pictures of how adorable they are, or hushing them with an iPad to play games and watching videos, look into their days more seriously. Do not waste them. Plan the activities that would fill their days, like learning how to read al-Quran (Iqra' levels and tajwid), reading books, cycling, playing chess, painting - any active activities - regularly, meaning at precise and disciplined times and hours, and most importantly, progressively.

Children would cry or the like when they are hungry and soon they would be given food. But intellectually and physically and cognitively, they would never know if they are hungry, starving, or dying. Only the ones with those decent degrees of understanding of those needs would recognize the crucial step of feeding them sufficiently in those areas.

Some parents might be too busy with work to sit down with their children working on those things, so perhaps, what they could do is to send them to assigned people who could carry out those teaching/supervising tasks seriously and lovingly. See, the formal education system is yet to be flawless though it's getting better somehow, but never ever expect other hands to mould the children best. Character, patience, creativity, love, grit, bravery, and more, these are characteristics which need never-ending attention and support from the parents from the time before the children were even born until they are sixteen. These almost uncountable virtues we wish to incorporate in them would mean encouraging them and plan for them to take risks (having personal goals and working to realize them), explore the world on their own (traveling by flight or books or documentaries, read: all range of depth such as from history to poetry to physics), and many other things/habits true to your values, since the first second of their existence - which means planning by parents before these parents even get married.

If these are not considered, do not go raging at the nights of their seventeenth birthdays wishing they could have done or become this and that. Children are not a problem when they "disappoint" or an answer or a gift that you expect them know how to life already (yes, how to life. you read that). They are the product of whatever parents have done or did not do in the children's environment.